From time to time all writers must deal with friends, family or acquaintances who look down on their craft. Perhaps the most annoying aspect of being a writer isn’t writer’s block, but the know-it-all non-writer who thinks they can churn out interesting content on a regular basis without the slightest bit of effort.
Let me spell it out for some of you non-writers in ways that you can understand: You can’t.
Some of us “bloggers” wake up early five days a week and go to jobs. Those jobs often require us to work late into the night, and that’s not even counting the time it takes to commute to and from work. That’s not including the time it takes to then prepare dinner at hours sane people don’t prepare dinner, pay bills, and handle any number of other responsibilities we have before hoping online to find something worthwhile to write about.
It’s not good enough to just write, because it has to be done well. In order to get people to return to our pages we have to have a unique voice, keep grammatical mistakes to a minimum, respond to feedback, and be willing to put in extra time finding links and videos to support our arguments. Sometimes photos aren’t readily available, or we have to Photoshop our own. We do this, and the vast majority of us aren’t getting paid to do to so—we do it because we love the written word. We love our craft and want to accurately articulate the things that motivate and inspire us in ways that will do the same for someone else.
Given the above sentiments, I hope you can understand how a writer might take offense when someone whose daily experience with “writing” is limited to text messaging his girlfriend in emoticons, or a few hastily made scribbles on a grocery list once a week, implies that he could write a blog or a book if he wanted a hobby.
Here’s the bottom line: You haven’t written a blog or a book, and you’re not a writer. Don’t pretend like anyone can do it, because it’s not true. People who write on a regular basis have a discipline that the “I could do that if I felt like it” crowd will never have, so stop kidding yourself.
When you, the self righteous non-writer, have put together a blog and delivered quality writing three times a week for at least a year, give me a call. Until then, go back to texting your girlfriend using as many acronyms as possible.
This election cycle, voters need to see a stark contrast between the policies of the Republican Party and the policies of President Obama. The GOP can start by making a hard right.
Every election season pundits talk about the need to move to the center. What they don’t mention is that every four years the cultural center of the nation has moved leftward. In the tug-of-war for the heart and soul of the country, conservatives are told that if they walk toward their rivals they’ll somehow win the war. And then unconstitutional healthcare mandates are passed. Catholic organizations are essentially told they need to give the collection plate to the administrative assistant so she can buy birth control. 15 trillion dollars of debt can go through the ceiling, but the nation isn’t allowed to drill its own soil for oil.
As the race for the GOP nomination continues, the usual suspects will question whether Santorum’s social conservatism would weigh him down in the general election. Alan Colmes and MSNBC contributor Eugene Robinson infamously called the way the Santorum family dealt with the loss of their son Gabriel “crazy” and “weird” respectively, but the Obama administration’s attack on religious liberty apparently doesn’t generate newsworthy sound bites. Rick Santorum’s personal beliefs on the gay lifestyle are seen as a harbinger of nasty things to come, but the judicial activism of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is met with cheers out in California. In almost every facet of American life the left shifts the center under our feet. The correct response is not to play along to get along—it’s to pull back.
Ronald Reagan was “The Great Communicator” for a reason. He articulated conservative public policy in a way that resonated with all Americans. Correction: Enough Americans to win 49 of 50 states in a landslide victory in 1984. Instead of triangulating issues like minimum wage for unfriendly media, he laid out a principled conservative case before the American people, and by and large they followed. Today GOP nominees often appear to be vying to become “The Great Capitulator.”
If perpetual unemployment rates previously seen only in Europe are what we’re after, the GOP should pivot to the center. If attacks on religious liberties or financial implosions modeled after Greece are what we’re after, the GOP should pivot to the center. If a return to fiscal sanity and a limited government that respects religious institutions is what we want, a hard right will go a long way towards returning balance to the nation.
You can't go full on Super Saiyan on the first try, my friend! It takes years of training...
I’m going to break ranks and talk about the latest viral video, Super Saiyans are real. If you haven’t seen it, all you need to know is that a young man who’s been a fan of Dragon Ball Z cartoons makes a video. Long story short, he wants to be like the main hero, who appears to be inspired by Shaolin monks. Instead of going through the years of mental and physical training it would take to actually become a Shaolin monk, the young man hopes that by believing with all his heart and soul he can “go Super Saiyan” on his first try. He says:
This is something that’s been in my heart for a long time. All I ever wanted to be in life with a Super Saiyan…I just feel like when I see superheroes—why can’t we be that exciting and awesome? Why can’t I I wake up and if I’m late for school just teleport there and be on time? During that time of meditation and thinking about it I realized something: all of that is possible and more. It’s all in here. It’s all in your mind.
Think about anything you ever tried to do. You thought to yourself, “Man, I could never do that.” But then when you practiced, guess what? You got better at it and you actually achieved it, didn’t you? It’s the same thing when you look at super powers. Of course it sounds absurd when you first look at it, but if you actually set your mind to it and believe, you can achieve it. I saw a Chinese man set a piece of paper on fire with just the power of his hands. You’re going to tell me that was fake? No, it wasn’t fake! He channeled that energy from within. He channeled that energy through the creation of his mind…
I feel like anything you set your mind to, your mind can create that force. Your mind is just a powerful machine. Whatever you set it to and you believe and work towards achieving, you can do it. You can do it. And I believe I can be a Super Saiyan. This is my first time exposing this side of me to the world, and I know a lot of you are laughing…I’m going to attempt to go Super Saiyan on film.
All joking aside, the kid is onto something. What you think and what you believe will ultimately determine who you are. If you want something really badly and you put your mind to it, in many cases your preparation and persistence can mold reality to your will. Over the course of a lifetime, those pictures you create in your mind can become a physical reality. If this young man applies that very same mindset to his schooling and professional life, he’ll go rather far. Taking off his shirt and screaming in the workplace wouldn’t be a good idea, but overall he has a very inspiring message.
Where our young Super Saiyan erred was in thinking that he could take a short cut to success. There are no short cuts. In many ways the reality he sought to create DID happen—he now IS “Super Saiyan” to well over 475,000 people! Unfortunately, it’s not quite the reality he imagined because he didn’t put the time and effort into going about it the right way. Just as I wouldn’t walk into a gym and try and bench 300 lbs. without proper training, one shouldn’t delve into realms more closely associated with Shaolin monks and Buddhist masters without doing their homework.
Looking at the “likes” and “dislikes” on Youtube, it doesn’t take long to figure out why so many people enjoy the video. Deep down, you can’t help but like a guy who believes something with every fiber of his being. He wants to believe in Super Saiyans, but others want to believe in love, the ideology that guides their life, religion or any number of things. As we get older we tend to get more cynical, and it’s nice to see someone with youthful innocence in a society that seeks to strip it from children at an earlier and earlier age. I’d be willing to bet the meanest comments left on the young man’s Youtube page are left by people who have given up on themselves. The nicest comments probably come from people who know that the kid’s mindset won’t allow him to break the laws of physics anytime soon, but that it will come in handy when he graduates from college and enters the real world.
Keep practicing, kid. Keep your shirt on and tone it down a bit and you’re going to go far.
In one corner, we have a bitter boxer obsessed with race. In the other we have a nice kid who just wanted to play basketball who ended up in the feel good story of the week. I'm calling Jeremy Lin for a TKO in the ring of public opinion.
Basketball kid from Harvard has a tough time landing a gig in the NBA. Spends time on his brother’s couch. He gets the call on the biggest stage in the world, New York City, and has a string of games that’s made for a Hollywood movie. Feel good story of the week, right? Wrong. Not for everyone. That’s because racially insecure guys like boxer Floyd Mayweather exist.
Mayweather posted on Twitter: “Jeremy Lin is a good player but all the hype is because he’s Asian. Black players do what he does every night and don’t get the same praise.” …
“Other countries get to support/cheer their athletes and everything is fine,” he tweeted later Monday. “As soon as I support Black American athletes, I get criticized.”
No, Floyd—people are criticizing you because you’re an idiot. Should I go down the list of black basketball stars that the sporting world has (rightfully) fawned over for their athletic prowess over the last few decades? Sometimes, black athletes are so popular that years after they retire people still riot over their shoes… As a former kid from Chicago who grew up following Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen, wore their shoes, collected their Wheaties cereal boxes and dragged my parents to get their cheesy championship t-shirts the morning after, I hereby proclaim Floyd a fool (knowing full-well that he could break my neck with one punch if he ever met me in person).
There really was no reason for Mayweather to inject race into the matter, but like Samuel L. Jackson he’s obsessed with it. Whereas the majority of the population just wants to get caught up in a really nice story about a nice kid, malcontents like Mayweather need to somehow make it about the downtrodden, millionaire black basketball players who aren’t getting the media exposure they deserve. Hyphenated Americans like Mayweather are usually a bitter bunch, but luckily more and more Americans see themselves as just that—American. There’s no need for weirdly capitalizing “White” or “Black” for most folks, and that’s a good sign. It’s just too bad that a big ball of debt is about to rain down on us like a Jeremy Lin three pointer at the buzzer, one of the rare cases where that analogy would actually be a bad thing.
President Barack Obama has mistaken his job as Commander in Chief with that of a game show host for Hollywood Squares, where contestants use celebrities as tic-tac-toe pieces to win prizes. While his list of ties to the entertainment industry is long and well documented, last month demonstrated more so than usual just how misplaced this administration’s priorities are. President (and former Hollywood actor) Ronald Reagan had the Kremlin on line one. In 2012, indicators suggest Mr. Obama reserves that spot for whoever is on the latest cover of Entertainment Weekly Magazine.
Only days into the new year, details finally emerged of a 2009 Alice in Wonderland party in the State Dining Room. Director Tim Burton played pricy interior decorator, and Johnny Depp in full Mad Hatter regalia breathed life into the affair. Perhaps no one told the president that if you have to try and keep a lid on the opulence of a party it’s probably too expensive to hold to begin with.
In January, Mr. Obama also took time out of his schedule to write TV star, singer and Hollywood darling Zooey Deschanel a personal birthday card. Voters didn’t need to wonder why for long, because it turns out that the Obama campaign has an extensive “wish list” of Hollywood supporters he’s eying to help carry him over the finish line. George Clooney, Michael Moore, Ben Affleck, Whoopi Goldberg, and Jay-Z are just a few of the pieces Mr. Obama would like to have back on his Campaign 2012 tic-tac-toe board.
Presidential game show hosts also need money, and the month ended with news that Will Ferrell would be throwing a fundraiser for the president in Los Angeles. The cost for admission? Roughly $36,000, the kind of chump change “the 99%” might find in their couch cushions during Spring cleaning—if by 99% you mean Bruce Springsteen.
Many commentators have asked if the president really believed his own State of the Union rhetoric when he said, “The state of our union is getting stronger.” The answer is yes, because that’s what happens when you spend too much time with people who live in the land of make-believe. The world’s dictators and despots are playing global chess while the leader of the free world is playing Hollywood Squares with Will Ferrell. If the Obama administration had a genre it wouldn’t be comedy. In fact, it’s a tragedy.
Butch Walker is one of the most amazing American musicians alive. Period. And pretty soon there will be a documentary released on him titled Butch Walker: Out of Focus, which looks amazing. Thank God one of my Army buddies introduced him to me well over a decade ago. Billed as “a film about never giving up,” and “discovering what really matters,” it’s the kind of movie that’s already speaking to the conservative in me. Better yet, the trailer is set to a song off his new album, Synthesizers:
“For once in your life, won’t you do what feels right, instead of waiting on the next big compromise.”
Not long ago, when I was at a professional crossroads, this song came out. It seemed to perfectly put into words exactly how I was feeling. I had a great job—a job a lot of people would die for—but I felt as though I wasn’t on track to accomplish a lot of long term goals. I could stay where I was in a secure place that might present me with the opportunities I was looking for, or I could take a leap of faith in a direction that was high-risk, high-reward territory. I did what “felt right,” and now I know that I made the right choice, because no matter what happens I’ll never have to wonder “what if?”. On your death bed it’s probably good to have a short number of those, and I’m thankful to Walker for subtracting quite a few from my “What If List.”
If you’re not familiar with Butch Walker, I highly suggest looking his work and the work he’s done for other musicians. His depth and breadth is amazing. He’s smart, creative and a true individual. As he states in the trailer: “I’ve been a self-supported, self-sustaining touring act for 10 years, 15 years.”
Butch Walker has a way with words that I truly admire. He can turn a phrase like nobody’s business, he notices little details that capture the essence of a character or a moment, he’s witty and funny, and I just can’t say enough good things about him from a creative point of view.
As a writer, I’m always looking for someone else who loves their creative craft the way I do—whether it’s an author, a musician, an actor or a director. I don’t know what Butch Walker’s politics are and, quite frankly, in this case I don’t really care. As an American musician, he’s a national treasure and an inspiration to creators everywhere. I can’t wait to catch Butch Walker: Out of Focus.
When someone speaks of personal responsibility on national television they open themselves up to cries of "coded" racism by Princeton University professors. So when Bill Murray did just that on CNBC the other day, it took people by surprise.
CNBC Host: Do you have…a view on this country and what we need to do and where we are in time?
MURRAY: I think we ought to be personally responsible. I think if you can take care of yourself and then maybe take care of someone else then that’s sort of how you’re supposed to live. It’s not a question of asking other people for help or being rescued or anything like that. I think we’ve sort of gotten used to someone looking out for us, and I don’t think any other person is necessarily going to be counted on to look out for us. I think there are only so many people that can take care of themselves and can take care of other people, and the rest of the people—they’re useful in terms of compost for the whole planet—but there are just certain people who are going to go up, and certain people that are going to stay the same, and certain people who are going to drop. So, you’d like to be that person who is going to elevate. And if you can do that you can take care of yourself, and if you’re really good enough you should be able to take care of about this many [ the panel of four ] people.
CNBC HOST: Are you saying that America was founded on individualism, as opposed to Europe? Are you making a contrast—
MURRAY: This country really is a pioneer country. We forget the kind of discipline they had to have to get from—occasionally it seeps in that they came in wagons from Illinois to Oregon or whatever it was. That they came in wagons and the wheels broke, and you see it. The [researchers say], “Gee, that must have been hard for those women to push that wagon up the mountain.” And that’s what they had to do. There was no option but to do it yourself, to have your own personal responsibility. There is no turning back. This is your life. As we say to one of my brothers, “This is your life. This is not a dress rehearsal.”
Bravo, Bill. He makes incredibly lucid points, which seldom happens with Hollywood stars. I highly suggest watching the entire interview, if for no other reason than to see just how carefully Bill treads. He seems to be a very smart man, and throughout the entire interview you can see him very delicately addressing the issues, as if he knows all of Hollywood is watching. Conservatives in the entertainment industry—or even those with tinctures of conservatism—need to lay their cards on the table with a pitter-patter, while “comedians” (I use the term loosely) like Rosanne Barr or Joy Behar get to blurt out liberal brain-farts without a care in the world.
Regardless of Bill Murray’s voting patterns (he may very well be a Democrat), it’s obvious that he at least realizes just how far of a departure the country has made from its founding. Whereas we once road rickety wagons across the Great Plains to realize our dreams, we now have kids who are on their parent’s health care coverage until age 26 complaining about how hard things are. We’re at an all time low and we don’t even realize it because our friends overseas are in an even sorrier state of affairs.
While I commend Bill Murray for even broaching the subject of personal responsibility when asked about his worldview, I can’t help but find it sad that in this time and place common sense earns a pat on the back. Since I probably won’t run across Murray in public anytime soon, I’ll just check him out in Moonrise Kingdom on opening night.
What do you do if you vowed to always do what is right, but also to never to take a man's life, when the right thing in a given situation IS to kill? We probably won't find out with The Amazing Spider-Man, but the trailer is still good.
The new Amazing Spider-Man trailer is out, and I must say that it’s better than expected. In November 2010, I blogged about liberal Hollywood activist Martin Sheen playing the role of Uncle Ben, and whether or not that would change his famous motto to “With great power comes other people’s money.” The message of the movie is still ultimately up for grabs, but at least the cinematography looks slick. While the franchise as a whole probably should have sat on the shelf for a few more years before an attempt at a reboot was made, it looks as if Andrew Garfield might turn out a respectable film after all.
Comic legend Stan Lee always said that Spider-Man was, “the superhero who could be you!” Peter Parker was picked on in high school. He had girl problems. He was skinny. That’s true, but what what was always so powerful about the character was the guilt Peter had to deal with for having let his uncle’s murderer get away when he had a chance to stop him. The message that one should always do the right thing is one that isn’t heard too often these days, in part because moral relativists have convinced large segments of the population that there isn’t a right thing. Because this new movie appears to concentrate on how the disappearance of Peter’s parents affected his life, more so than his culpability in Uncle Ben’s death, your Spider-Sense should be tingling.
Peter Parker has historically been driven by guilt, rightfully manifested when he refuses to so much as lift a finger (with his new super powers) to stop the man that would wind up killing his Uncle. Based solely on the trailer, The Amazing Spider-Man may be driven by guilt of a different kind, when he literally and figuratively gives Doctor Curt Conners a hand and it all goes wrong. It’s tough to say how these changes will impact the film, but the emotional weight of the character might suffer because of it. In one instance Peter must endure sleepless nights ridding the world of evil because he once let evil get away. In the other instance he must rid the world of evil because perhaps he was just too darned nice of guy. Or will he suffer both? It all depends on how much the writers decided to stay faithful to the canon at this point.
Finally, the one weakness Spider-Man stories have always had, and will continue to have for the foreseeable future, is that the character refuses to kill anyone. Anyone. That includes psychopathic nuts with superpowers. He makes a point to always use the minimum amount of force necessary to subdue an opponent, but has always ruled out ending their life (no matter how many times that villain returns to kill innocent victims). Sometimes the responsible thing to do is to take a life—something cops have to deal with every day. I’ve never understood why the writers of Spider-Man didn’t get that.
Regardless, on July 7th, 2012, check out The Amazing Spider-Man and let me know what you think.
I wasn't given a prescription for Basic Training by a doctor (Drill Sergeants don't come in pill form), but it cured my so-called ADD. Who knew.
When I was a kid my mom wondered aloud whether or not I had ADD. She mentioned that some of my teachers thought the same thing. Although I was never placed on Ritalin, it was at that time that I was introduced to the word. Years later I was assigned to report to Fort Benning, GA for Basic Training. In a matter of weeks my “ADD” was cured! All it took was a Drill Sergeant and the life of an infantryman to sweat the ADD out of me. No drugs necessary. It turns out I was just a kid with a lot of energy, who also happened to be a bit of a joker. Nothing a few thousand push-ups, mud and cold couldn’t cure. It’s because of my own experience that I can’t help but be skeptical about many of the 3 million American kids who take drugs to “focus” each year. L. Alan Sroufe, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, is on the same wavelength:
Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects…
Sadly, few physicians and parents seem to be aware of what we have been learning about the lack of effectiveness of these drugs.
What gets publicized are short-term results and studies on brain differences among children. Indeed, there are a number of incontrovertible facts that seem at first glance to support medication. It is because of this partial foundation in reality that the problem with the current approach to treating children has been so difficult to see.
While I don’t subscribe to the Tom Cruise wing of the anti-drug alliance, it seems like the knee jerk reaction in the United States is to pump someone up with drugs the moment there is a problem. It’s hard work to get to the root of a problem, but it’s rather easy to find a doctor who will scribble some words on a piece of paper so you can feel better before the week is out. But no one really asks if you actually ARE better.
Over the past few years I had a job that was rather stressful. It was rewarding work, but the pay wasn’t great and the demands for excellence were high. I had trouble paying my bills (DC is an expensive city, and I racked up a lot of debt in the form of student loans). I was in a long distance relationship. I started having weird heart palpitations in the middle of the day. I couldn’t sleep. I thought I was going to have a heart attack, even though I’m a healthy male who doesn’t drink or smoke—and I exercise regularly. I talked with a number of people, all of whom cared deeply for me and wanted me to do what was in my best interest. Almost all of them indicated that I might need to resort to some sort of drugs to handle my anxiety. These trusted friends also indicated that if I saw some of the doctors they recommended (again, out of concern for my health), that I would most likely end up getting a prescription of some kind.
I determined that the financial, professional, and romantic pressures coming at me from all sides should be alleviated first. I quit my job, and found one that set me on a better course for my long term goals. I lowered some of my student loan payments just enough to give me the breathing room I needed to live and work in DC. While it wasn’t initially on the docket, I ended up getting married. In a relatively short span of time my sleep returned, my heart palpitations stopped, and my chest no longer felt as though The Incredible Hulk was standing on it. By making tough choices that were connected to the root problem, I was able to avoid drugs—which in my particular case would have only been masking the core issues at hand.
Professor Sroufe is on the ball when he says:
However brain functioning is measured, [studies geared towards the “inborn defect”] tell us nothing about whether the observed anomalies were present at birth or whether they resulted from trauma, chronic stress or other early-childhood experiences. One of the most profound findings in behavioral neuroscience in recent years has been the clear evidence that the developing brain is shaped by experience.
It is certainly true that large numbers of children have problems with attention, self-regulation and behavior. But are these problems because of some aspect present at birth? Or are they caused by experiences in early childhood? These questions can be answered only by studying children and their surroundings from before birth through childhood and adolescence, as my colleagues at the University of Minnesota and I have been doing for decades (emphasis added).
Again, none of this is meant to suggest that there aren’t biochemical conditions that can (and should) be treated with medications. The question at hand is whether or not we’re doing ourselves a disservice by going to quick-fix prescription drugs whenever it seems like some serious introspection might result in a handful of really tough decisions (e.g., Do I need to quit my job?).
We’ve become a nation that’s inflated with unearned self-esteem. When a problem arises, it’s not us who need to change—it’s our biochemistry! While this may be true in some cases, I’m inclined to think that millions of kids are needlessly taking drugs each year.
Remember Fallujah? The people screaming the loudest about urinating Marines don't. The Uniform Code of Military Justice has worked for over half a century. The Taliban operate outside the rule of law. Case closed.
The world collectively yawned when Momar Gaddafi was sodomized with a crude instrument in his last bloody moments. Egypt’s Hussein Tantawi has a military whose first major objective after the fall of Hosni Mubarak was to strip down female protestors, drag them by the hair, and stomp on their chests. North Korea runs modern-day gulags, and it’s somehow fodder for late night comics. By and large American liberals are tight lipped about the barbaric nature of the enemies we face around the globe, so it’s rather peculiar that the video apparently depicting U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban has got them talking.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations has put out a statement calling for those found guilty to have the book thrown at them:
“We trust that this disturbing incident will be promptly investigated in a transparent manner and that appropriate actions will be taken based on the results of that investigation. Any guilty parties must be punished to the full extent allowed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice and by relevant American laws.”
Missing from CAIR’s website is a condemnation of the tactics used by the Taliban, or the call for their members to be tried by an Islamic equivalent of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The fact remains: The Uniformed Code of Mujahideen Justice doesn’t exist. In 2004, a judicial system also wasn’t set up by al-Qaeda in Iraq when they charred American civilians in Fallujah, hung them from a bridge, and danced around their desecrated remains.
Also missing from the current debate are calls for Secretary of Leon Panetta to step down, as was the demand de rigueur for Donald Rumsfeld when details surrounding Abu Ghraib came to light. Those looking for intellectual consistency from the left will not find it, but the broader point is not missed by fair-minded folks: the Uniform Code of Military Justice works. When American troops lose their military manner they are held accountable for their actions. Liberalism’s self-flagellation brigades don’t understand that, but most Americans do.
Lynndie England and those responsible for Abu Ghraib were court-martialed and convicted. For every rare instance where an Army Specialist violates the UCMJ, there are countless others who never deviate from the Seven Army Values: Loyalty, Duty, Respect, Selfless Service, Honor, Integrity, and Personal Courage. For the outlier Marines that falter, there are battalions defined by the Marine Corps Values of Honor, Courage, and Commitment.
American soldiers deployed overseas are facing an enemy that uses women and children as shields, hide in hospitals and mosques, and don’t wear a standard uniform. Terrorists take advantage of Rules of Engagement crafted more for scoring points with the United Nations cocktail circuit than winning a war and securing the peace. Then, the politically correct chattering class wrings its hands over the blow back they’re largely responsible for.
The last thing the Pentagon wants is this generation’s John Kerry testifying before Congress that American war fighters are “reminiscent of Genghis Khan.” The top brass will see to it that Uniform Code of Military Justice does its job, as it has for over half a century. Liberals attempt to put the entire military on trial in the court of public opinion every time they see an opening. Once again, it’s up to conservatives to provide the proper defense.
Douglas Ernst Blog 